Not so obviously, you make the stories of high adventure come alive with creative & fun shadow puppets on said boat while singing modified sea shanties—and that’s just what Drama of Works does with their new show Blood Red Roses: The Female Pirate Project.

Listen in as Gretchen Van Lente, the show’s director and lead deviser, and collaborator/performer Meghan Williams, discuss collaborative dramaturgy, shadow puppets, using your rehearsal studio, how to get your show on a boat, and all the lady pirates.

“…people always wanted to come backstage and see the show…we started thinking, what if we took that, and brought it in front…there are no real secrets…we’re just trying to make simple, elegant solutions to storytelling problems…”

…and a whistleblower, a high-school anti-bullying activist, an assassin, a Scottish sea captain, a U.S. president, Barbara Walters…

All these characters (and more) collide in various bars across the borough of Brooklyn as part of Letter of Marque Theater Company‘s traveling play Bully MeDown, written by Nolan Kennedy and performed by Welland H. Scripps, Jason Tottenham, Scarlet Rivera, and Kennedy himself.

Listen in as Nolan, Welland and I hang out on the street-corner outside Hank’s Saloon after a performance to discuss putting theatre in a bar, a play as your company’s “self-titled album,” bullying, and shooting for the stars.

“We kind of wanted to do a ‘self-titled-album’ kind of show, so it’s trying on these piratical, privateer stories and ideas, and it also is dealing with what’s happening around us…this idea of what’s private and what’s not private…”